Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Sharp, Interesting things going on ( UPDATED )

Thanks to Joe for sending me these links to Sharp....

Sharp = Foxconn.

Beyond image projection there isn't a lot of good use for lasers. (See bottom.) Projection is a biggie.

So, if Sharp is producing a million of these each month -- I'm going to guess that it's mostly for their own purposes. There are other producers of green laser diodes, mostly that will go to projection.

Note to self:
Start digging for someone making glass that reflects specific light wavelengths only, I suspect that after specific reflective surfaces that is the next big step. (If your glass reflected 515nm only, and allowed all other wavelengths to pass through easily, this would be an excellent way to make a hud that could take advantage of an entire windshield without blocking vision from the outside or too many other reflections of what's going on inside the car on to the windshield.

UPDATE:  Knew this had to be out there somewhere.

Found Here: Konica Minolta





Sharp & Laser -- clearly using MEMS mirror

Sharp Corporate News
 Sharp will start mass production of two models of green semiconductor laser suitable for display light source from November this year.
 Semiconductor lasers are mounted in various devices such as reading and writing data on optical discs such as Blu-ray and DVD and scanners of barcode readers. Recently, the range of utilization has expanded to the image field such as the light source of the projector.
 This time, our company will be able to offer semiconductor lasers of three primary colors of light (red, green, blue) from the company for the first time in the industry by joining the green laser to the lineup. By responding to the customer 's request by adjusting the optical characteristics such as light intensity and laser light shape and electric characteristics such as current value, we contribute to shortening the development period and reducing the burden of procurement work.
This green laser achieves a wavelength of 515 nm and an optical output of 30 mW.  We have two kinds of metal packages with a standard type diameter of 5.6 mm and a compact diameter of 3.8 mm. We will respond to customers' diverse needs as compact projectors, market-expanding small projectors, head up display (HUD) * 2 , head mount display (HMD) * 3,etc.
 In addition, this product will be exhibited at the international exhibition "OptOpto 2017" of optical technology to be held at Makuhari Messe (Mihama Ward, Chiba Prefecture) from Wednesday, October 4th to Friday the 6th.


Purposes for Green lasers (source for below)

Applications:-

Green lasers can be used for a variety of roles. They can be used as pointing devices. The ability to form a continuous line in the dark is an added advantage; this has lead to its usage as rescue lights as it can be seen from miles away. It as been used for laser light shows. It is also used for sky gazing as a person can pinpoint a star by using the green laser. It can also be as laser pointers for guns, rifles. In the movie Alien vs. Predator it was used as a pointing device on some G36k carbines.

Advantages:-

The green laser has many advantages. It is fifty times brighter than a red laser because of which it can be seen from miles away, this helps in being rescued if a person is lost. It can also be used in high-tech weapons for aiming purposes. Because of its high range, Green laser pointers can be equipped in different kinds of weapons. High and low temperatures do not affect the performance of Green laser pointers so in case a person is lost in a desert, he can still use Green laser pointers to call for help, in other case, even if a person is lost some where in mountains all covered with ice, he can still use it.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Tilt Brush

A LOT of this kind of thing has to be happening before Augmented Reality really takes hold, so I'm glad to see that things are really moving along.

"Normal Course of Business"

At the stockholder this year there was clear excitement about engine 2. (PicoP with interactive time of flight feature.)

The samples of this engine were shipped on August 9 Last time samples of a new engine were shipped it took 78 days for the announcement of an order -- but they won't be required by SEC regulations to announce an order (and may be forbidden from announcing it by their customer.) Such an order would be "in the normal course of business," and exempt from a special announcement.


The distributor announcement was excellent.

From the outside we don't know the details of what's happening... 


Revisit the Basics of Microvision

... and this is a good one to revisit -- since it's been copied by another "writer."

Keystone of the Quadfecta


...10% of smartphones... gets MVIS stockholders CRAZY wealth.

Recheck the Calculator


I still expect news in 23 days or less.

Friday, September 22, 2017

STM, Microvsion

This is from STM's technology tour. Note the highlighting of MicroVision's tech, and the importance of the relationship, and the description of the other engine (which looks a lot like a certain other company's offering.)

There will be competition out there, but it's going to be a gigantic market. Apple is doing relatively well with their 10% of a market.







Thursday, September 21, 2017

Ford and Hololens

I don't know if we're anywhere near this, but in 2016 at CES I tried every AR thing I could get my hands on. The old version of NOMAD had better clarity, and field of view than anything they had there.


The Verge

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Augmented Reality Apps included in newest Apple Upgrade

This is only included to show what's coming with Augmented Reality --- the way to view this content with GLASSES --- is going to be a place where MicroVision shines -- no matter who makes the computing hardware.

Inman -- source


“By blending digital objects and information with the environment around you, ARKit takes apps beyond the screen, freeing them to interact with the real world in entirely new ways,” Apple says on its website.

Augmented Reality "Walk the Property Lines" #WalkTheLines from Homesnap on Vimeo.



Magicplan, which allows users to create floor plans while walking and automatically computes the required amount of materials for DIY projects, such as paint or flooring, based on the plan dimensions



Why AR will take off before VR

Virtual reality is probably years away from becoming mainstream, according to Leo Pareja, CEO of real estate big data company Remine. Pareja spoke on a panel called “Connecting Immersive Technology With MLS Data” at the Council of Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) conference Friday.

“VR is way in the distance and probably never mainstream, but AR, absolutely. It’ll start in our phones and then go to wearables,” Pareja said.

Fellow panelist Andrew Flachner, founder and CEO of RealScout, agreed. “Now everyone has an AR device in their pocket with Apple’s announcement.”

But he cautioned that the artificial intelligence and machine learning that underlie some of the newest technologies are very far from being able to understand our world the way humans do.

Currently, tech is available that takes a photo from the MLS and is able to identify definitively that it’s a photo of a kitchen, Flachner said. But we’re a long way from technology that is able to understand that a particular home is perfect for a particular buyer the way a real-live agent can.

Netflix for Theaters

So, a way to get people into theaters has been giving the industry fits. (They still get paid, and they're upset about it.)

I suspect it will be an even bigger problem for them when the theater fits in your pocket. 

I'll stick my neck out a little here, and say these companies are going to be good shorts: Publicly traded Theater Companies.

Blast from the past, India and their shortage of movie screens. (8 screens per million people -- and they love their movies.)



MoviePass -- Watch any movie in any Theater, any day.

NYPost

In just three weeks, membership spiked to more than 400,000, Lowe told The Post in a recent interview. “I thought it would have taken us more than six to eight months to get as many subscribers as we did in the first two days,” Lowe said.

The New York company tripled its payroll to keep up with demand and has fast-tracked plans for an updated app. One is now due in early 2018 — around the time it plans to launch an IPO.

Under its business model, MoviePass pays theaters the full price of a ticket every time a subscriber sees a movie — so there is no immediate downside for chains like AMC Entertainment, Regal Entertainment or Cinemark.

But the price cut announcement had hardly hit people’s inboxes when pundits and industry insiders were measuring Lowe for a straitjacket.

The price cut, they argue, is doomed for failure, predicting that it will never hold and the company will soon be hemorrhaging cash.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Microsoft Patent

Thanks Fuzzie

Read ALL
Object-centric mixed reality space 
US 20130342570 A1


ABSTRACT
A see-through, near-eye, mixed reality display apparatus providing a mixed reality environment wherein one or more virtual objects and one or more real objects exist within the view of the device. Each of the real and virtual have a commonly defined set of attributes understood by the mixed reality system allowing the system to manage relationships and interaction between virtual objects and other virtual objects, and virtual and real objects.

 Additionally, microdisplay 120 can be implemented using an emissive technology where light is generated by the display. For example, a PicoP™ engine from Microvision, Inc. emits a laser signal with a micro mirror steering either onto a tiny screen that acts as a transmissive element or beamed directly into the eye (e.g., laser).


Saturday, September 16, 2017

The Forgotten Screen (no really)


datougou.cn

From the smart phone available, after several generations of change, almost all of the mobile phone parts have been a depth of "change", envelope, material, processor, pixels, memory and so on. The screen problem, it seems that mobile phone manufacturers deliberately missed.
To "big screen mobile phone", can only be regarded as "full screen" transition products. The size of the phone is too large, not only inconvenient to carry, and the appearance is very rigid. And "full screen" will not have such a problem, to meet the premise of the portable, "full screen" mobile phone with the largest "screen rate" to the user the best visual experience. Throughout the mobile phone market, not only the iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S8 eye-catching, there is a dark orange VOGA is also a dark horse in the mobile phone market cut a striking figure, occupy a place.

*******************

 It is understood that the orange VOGA V has a variety of suitable scenarios, including family scenes, outdoor scenes, entertainment scenes and office scenes. For consumers, the more diversified application of the scene so that the green VOGA V more attractive, unlimited infinite connection, sharing will also be unlimited delivery.

From the era of a comprehensive screen, green orange VOGA V with technology to change the "view" sector, a mobile phone is also a portable private theater. The next decade of the science and technology sector, "unbounded full screen", let us look forward to!

Eventually, they MUST use PicoP

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Blowout Type Growth



KKNews

Dr. Lin pointed out that, compared to the traditional large projection products, micro-projection module with small size, low power consumption, can be embedded in a high degree of many advantages, can be widely used in business office, teaching, leisure and entertainment, daily life and many other Field of products. 


Micro-projection products are emerging on the market, micro-projection has penetrated into the phone, can wear, AR / VR, speakers, cars and other mass consumption areas. The 3D sensing technology based on micro-projection interaction activates the optical interaction attribute, and realizes the third man-machine interaction after touching the graphical interface. In the future, with the emergence of smart speakers, intelligent robots, smart phones / tablet, smart wear, AR and a series of interactive micro-cast application scenarios and micro-projection technology continues to mature, a micro-projection technology triggered by the portable display revolution Has arrived According to authoritative research firm data projections, global micro-cast unit shipments in 2020 is expected to grow from 6.59 million in 2017 to 19.61 million, sales will grow from $ 917 million in 2017 to 2.7 billion in 2020 US dollars, to achieve blowout growth.

LAP TIMER at 35

There is a timer here for expected news. It will stay running... but we got news with 35 
days remaining

It started counting at 78 days, for expected news after shipment of the sample units of engine #2.

Yesterday we got news that we're connected with the #1 global semiconductor distributor. Which is great news, and will help MicroVision immensely.

I'd stop the clock, but this isn't the news that the timer is set for. It's set for an announcement of the first order for Engine #2 -- which is still expected sometime before the timer runs out.

It's appropriate to notice, that since creating tiny projector engines and sending them to customers is in the "ordinary course of business." The order may be sent and filled, without an announcement at all. If I were producing the product that includes it, I'd like to keep it quiet right up until the announcement.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Microvision signs deal with #1 Global Semiconductor Distributor

You don't need deals with big distributors if you have only one or two customers.

There were a number of distributors at the STM technical presentation...


Today, MicroVision issued a press release announcing the following distribution agreement:

REDMOND, Wash. and Taipei, Taiwan– Sept 13, 2017 – MicroVision, Inc. (NASDAQ: MVIS), a leader in innovative ultra-miniature projection display and sensing technology, and WPG Holdings (TSE: 3702, WPG), the largest distributor of semiconductor components in Asia, today announced that they have entered into an agreement for distribution of MicroVision’s line of PicoP® scanning engines across Asia.

WPG will distribute MicroVision’s engine products in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia through its subsidiaries AIT Group, WPG Korea and South Asia.
MicroVision has announced its plans to have three different PicoP scanning engines in the market in 2017 and 2018: the first engine is available now for applications that benefit from a small form factor display engine; the second engine, for which development kits began sampling this quarter, combines projected display with an interactive user interface that mimics the familiar touch screen of a smartphone or tablet; the third engine is a 3D sensing solution for mid-range LiDAR, and samples are expected to be available in the first half of 2018.

“We are intrigued by the different scanning engine products MicroVision is developing and impressed with the capabilities of PicoP® scanning technology to support multiple applications from a common technology platform,” said Frank Yeh, Chief Executive Officer of WPG. “We see great potential with this product line and are looking forward to introducing this ground breaking technology to our customers across Asia.”

“Bringing new technology to market requires strong partners, and WPG and its subsidiaries have the leadership, regional presence and demonstrated service level we were seeking in a distributor,” said Alexander Tokman, President and Chief Executive Officer of MicroVision. “As the number one semiconductor distributor in Asia with trans-national services and established customer relationships across the Asia region, this partnership with WPG can help us grow the market for our PicoP® scanning engines.”

WPG and its subsidiaries will provide sales and marketing and technical support as well as distribution services. The agreement is effective immediately.

About MicroVision

MicroVision is the creator of PicoP® scanning technology, an ultra-miniature laser projection and sensing solution based on the laser beam scanning methodology pioneered by the company. MicroVision’s platform approach for this advanced display and sensing solution means that it can be adapted to a wide array of applications and form factors. It is an advanced solution for a rapidly evolving, always-on world. MicroVision’s business model and product line offering includes display and sensing engines, licensing its patented technology and selling components to licensees for incorporation into their scanning engines.

Extensive research has led MicroVision to become an independently recognized leader in the development of intellectual property. MicroVision’s IP portfolio has been recognized by the Patent Board as a top 50 IP portfolio among global industrial companies and has been included in the Ocean Tomo 300 Patent Index. The company is based in Redmond, Wash.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.microvision.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MicroVisionInc or follow MicroVision on Twitter at @MicroVision.

About WPG

WPG Holdings is the number 1* global semiconductor distributor and the largest electronics distributor in Asia, with headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan (TSE:3702). WPG Holdings, operating through four leading semiconductor components distributors (WPIg, SACg, AITg, and YOSUNg), serves as a franchise partner for nearly 250 world-wide suppliers. With 5,100 staff in about 71 IED and 34 Non-IED sales offices around the world (about 43 IED & 34 Non-IED in Greater China and Asia Pacific region), WPG Holdings achieved US$16.65 billion in 2016 revenue. (*Source: Ranked No. 1 by Gartner Research Mar. 2016.)

MicroVision and PicoP are trademarks of MicroVision, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Goertek

This has been "scraped" to retain the content.


KKnews (Untranslated)



(Translated by Google)
With the rise of intelligent speakers, robots, smart wear, AR and other intelligent terminal application scenarios, 3D camera sensing market and micro-projection market will be "explosive" growth. 

Gole is the only provider of LBS (Laser Beaming Scanning, a MEMS micromirror + laser beam scanning imaging) micro-projection interactive technology solution, with a powerful precision optical module design and manufacturing capabilities. At the show, Goel brought a microprojection module based on the LBS technology solution and applied to the Orange VOGA handset, as well as the LBS Micro Projection + Image Interactive Module product. These products use the LBS technology projection program, with no focus, color saturation, low power consumption, small size and other advantages, and integrated image interaction function of the micro-projection module with the application of the algorithm, you can turn any projection surface With the touch function of the image, expanding the form of human-computer interaction, can be widely used in mobile projection, mobile phones, virtual enhance / reality and other consumer electronics products. In addition, Geer also demonstrated the use of TOF (Time of Light) technology, 3D perception camera module, compared to similar products have higher resolution and accuracy, mainly used in VR / AR and other intelligent terminal equipment.

Gore applied in the phone in the micro-projection module effect real shot


In the MEMS sensor, the song this time brought the industry's leading pressure sensor, modular sensor and heart rate sensor products. The pressure sensor products using a capacitive MEMS technology program, is the industry's smallest package size (2 × 2 × 0.76mm), the highest measurement accuracy (up to 0.6Pa, can detect the height of 5cm change) product solutions, has been Widely used in many consumer electronics field, in the aircraft model, UAV and other high-precision application of the market has occupied a leading position. In the combination of sensors, the song is pioneering the microphone, barometer and temperature sensor integrated in one, by optimizing the signal processing circuit and the latter part of the calibration algorithm to eliminate a variety of sensing devices between the crosstalk, to meet the product multi-functional applications Of the demand, saving the design space and reduce the cost. In addition, the Seoul heart rate sensor through the sensor unit and ASIC circuit integrated package, internal and external LED flexible configuration, and with independent research and development of high-precision algorithm with the realization of mobile phones, watches, bracelets, etc. in different Application of scene requirements under the heart rate monitoring.
As a leader in the field of acoustics, Goel can provide a complete micro-microphone solution. 
Gore's micro-microphone shipments have taken the first in the global market, with MEMS microphones ranking second in the global market. This exhibition, in addition to exhibiting small size, high-performance MEMS microphone and microphone array module. The 4-microphone array module can not only provide a pickup module solution for consumer electronics products such as smart speakers, but also help the product to achieve noise reduction, echo suppression, de-reverberation and Beam forming.
As the only one in the global MEMS market among the top 20 Chinese companies, the song is longer than R & D, skilled in manufacturing, has a wealth of world-class customer resources. The future, Goel will continue in the device miniaturization, multi-functional integration, intelligent direction of product and technology research and development. From the perception to the interaction, deep plowing environment and health sensors, Goer will continue to strengthen the overall strength from the device to the application development, is committed to becoming the world's leading provider of intelligent sensing solutions.

Monday, September 11, 2017

Microvision basics revisited

I know there are some people new to watching MicroVision stock and MicroVision's technology.


For those of you who have been watching this for a long time, you may be used to seeing a lot of "dot-connecting" -- looking at various clues to see where MicroVision's tech may appear next... that is no longer being done publicly. I do have a small circle I share with regularly where that is still done... and things look VERY exciting.
There's a lot collected in here, and there will be some links at the bottom. This is for Mike in Minnesota --- and everyone else who's new to watching this.

Microvision Technology #1

Below is a picture taken of a picture projected with MicroVision's PicoP technology through a Celluon PicoAir.

Note that the picture on the phone (seen at the lower side of the picture) is the same as the projected picture. This gives you an idea of the size of the picture you can get with the tech in a dark room. If the room is bright, move the projector closer... the image is always in focus, so moving the projector isn't a problem.



I have polled a LOT of people about how much adoption they think this will get. When I ask "so, what percentage of the smart phones produced on earth do you think will get a projector like this when it's widely available?"  --- the answer is almost always "All of them!" -- I have never heard an answer less than 25%.

The world wide smartphone market last year was 1,500,000,000 Units.  I have provided a place for people to do their own "price targeting" on the stock of the company, in the PRICE Target CALCULATOR.

Microvision Technology #2

In addition to the straight up PicoProjector, MicroVision also now has a PicoProjector that has interactive touch with it. So, you can turn any surface into the equivalent (more or less) of a tablet-computer screen. See that here:



And here as a part of consumer products:


Microvision recently posted this article, where they expect this kind of thing can be sold directly to Restaurants:  For Restaurants

Also, there is the "Internet of Things" that is on the horizon and on MicroVision's Radar. (er... LiDAR) [A Trillion IoT Devices]

That, I covered here recently. Essentially, the Internet of things is going to have many Billions of devices connected together and processing information. These devices are very powerful. (Illustration HERE, Playing Doom on a Thermostat). 


Microvision Technology #3

The third technology is LiDAR. This has enormous potential -- 3D scanning can work to help automate machines, cars, do 3D scanning, indoor mapping, etc. Trying to assess what a market for this might be is a little more difficult, because nothing like this is in place yet. I will hazard a guess that a lot of automobiles and nearly every lawnmower on the planet will have it though. Who likes doing that?

LiDAR has been around for a while, but MicroVision is going to make it much smaller, better and cheaper. Kevin Watson, an MVIS employee who has previously been at Tesla, SpaceX and Velodyne, calls it the "Holy Grail of LiDAR sensors."

LiDAR and the Lost City of the Monkey God


LiDAR and ADAS -- Self Driving Cars.

What it may enable, sooner rather than later....




Microvision Technology #4
MicroVision is also a pioneer in near-eye displays, that are going to make wearing a computer and having the computer superimpose data directly on the world around you a reality. Not virtual reality -- where a new vision replaces everything around you, but Augmented Reality... where the computer adds stuff to the world around you.

This in it's most primitive form was played as a game by millions -- called Pokemon Go. Even last week, a small crowd collected outside a business in my own town of people playing this game.

If it's this popular played on a phone, imagine what it will be like when it's all around you.




And the practical applications for this are staggering. This technology can vastly improve productivity and efficiency in manufacturing and repair, and help teach people to do things much more effectively.




So, there's a quick summary of what's going on. When will all this happen?

The most important slide from the last stockholders' meeting tells you:





Friday, September 8, 2017

Future of Digital Communication... Restaurants

Nice article by Dawn Goetter

Fast Casual  -- The whole article is great. It was hard to 



By Dawn Goetter, director of marketing and corporate communications at MicroVision, Inc.
In this day and age, fresh, on-demand content is the expectation wherever we go — in restaurants that applies to both the food being served and the technology being used to deliver an excellent experience to diners. 
With restaurants' constantly changing menu offerings, promotions, FDA regulations, and beyond, digital communication is key as it allows restaurants to quickly and easily change or tweak content in real-time.

Projected display with interactive touch
This solution mimics the type of touchscreen display people are used to on a smartphone or tablet, and it disappears when not in use. Wherever the image is projected, there'll be a virtual touchscreen ready for ordering, game playing, calling for assistance, paying or giving feedback. 

Clear benefits
Restaurants can reap many benefits: higher sales, enhanced guest satisfaction, and a decrease in the need to print, clean and store menus.
With the quick integration of technologies into restaurants over the past several years, this future is near. In fact, this technology exists. And, staying ahead of the technology curve offers an opportunity to meet your customers' needs while improving the bottom line.

Growth in Tech....

A company in the right place at the right time with the right technology can have outrageous growth.

There are 7 Billion people on earth. (more or less.)

2016 Smartphone sales  -- nearly 1.5 Billion Units


"For 2016 as a whole, Android grew 3.2 percent to reach a dominating 84.8 percent market share. Smartphone sales in general saw a five percent bump from 2015, totaling nearly 1.5 billion units."

One of the smartest, most heavily invested in tech people predicts a trillion IoT devices in the next 20 years. (Breaks down to about 50 billion annually, of course it's weighted to the end of that period.)  Trillion IoT Devices

Each of those devices is begging for a display. (they have a lot of computing horsepower.) You can, for example, play Doom -- a high-end video game of the 1990's on a current year thermostat.



So, what can a company that's well positioned with the right tech at the right place accomplish?

Enter Xaiomi.

This company didn't exist eight years ago. Not at all. In 2014 it was the third largest smartphone maker in the world.

In 2015 Xaiomi's revenues were 89.5 BILLION dollars. From Zero to 89 Billion in Five years.

Xaiomi sold over 70 million devices in 2015.



  • Microvision has Projection
  • Microvision has Interactive Projection
  • Microvision has 3D laser Scanning
  • Microvision has Near Eye Displays
The Calculator --- constructed really to only consider PicoP.

What happens when you add the rest? What part of 50 Billion IoT devices need an interactive display?

And of course... a great new way to play mobile games... 

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

A Trillion IoT devices

.... to deliver the information they collect and process they need displays. (big displays in small packages, and hopefully interactive displays.)

Computing horsepower available to those devices is stunning....


MVIS YouTube Interactive Display

They have Doom on a Thermostat power... 

Design News -- source
Imagine one trillion connected devices. That’s a thousand billion. The prediction that we’ll see a trillion IoT devices in the next 20 years came from Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank (which in 2016 acquiredARM) at last year’s ARM TechCon conference .
His crystal ball shows that by next year, the number of IoT devices will surpass the number of mobile devices. By 2021, he expects 1.8 billion PCs, 8.6 billion mobile devices, and 15.7 billion IoT devices. All of this comes with a lot of data. He further predicted that by 2035, the amount of data will grow more than 2,400 times, from 1 exabyte to 2.3 zettabytes. A lot of bits.

Amazon bought Whole Foods but not for why most people think...

Very interesting.... 

A lot to think about here.

Wired

To understand the move it’s important to first understand what Amazon is, and perhaps more importantly, what it is not: Amazon is not a retailer. It’s natural to think of it as a retailer but in truth, Amazon is a data, technology and innovation company that happens to sell things. Secondly, Amazon doesn’t regard its business as a series of product verticals but rather as a horizontal continuum of value.

Consider the comment that Jeff Bezos once made, after Amazon won a Golden Globe award for original video content. He said: "When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes." In other words, Bezos and team don’t think of any particular category of product or service as a means unto itself but rather as merely one small part of an intricately connected ecosystem of content, convenience and value, where success in each category sustains, supports and strengthens the others. The end game for Amazon is to sell everything, to everyone, everywhere.

So, how does the Whole Foods acquisition factor into that end objective? There are a few major factors to consider... (More at source.)
  • Frequency
  • Data
  • Shared Customers
  • Last Mile Strategy
  • Replenishment Technology

Newsweek

The century-long interplay between technology and retail suggests Walmart is screwed. Its efforts to morph into an online retailer by buying Bonobos and Jet.com will end up making the company seem like Michael Jordan playing baseball—what made it great at one thing doesn’t translate to another.

***********
Long before Amazon, tech shaped retail, and that history gives us a hint of what’s to come. Start back at the founding of Sears, in 1893. For its initial 30 years, Sears was solely a mail-order company, relying on the U.S. Postal Service and railroads for delivery. But the automobile was emerging as a new technology that would change society and alter the way people shop. There was now a relatively easy way to go to a store many miles away and bring items home. Sears’s big innovation was to build big stores that catered to customers arriving in cars. It opened its first store in Chicago in 1925 and built stores across the country as the economy boomed in the two decades after World War II, luring shoppers who would drive in from newly built suburbs. By exploiting the tech of automobiles, Sears reigned as the nation’s largest retailer into the 1980s.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Disney & Jedi..



A couple of familiar names involved with this...

I'll do some more digging around this, but we know the names Disney and Lenovo.

I suspect the fidelity required for a game is considerably less than required for more practical AR applications.


Source.... just started to look.


“We believe augmented reality will usher in a new era of storytelling and play an important role in the experiences we create for our fans,” said Kyle Laughlin, Senior Vice President, Games and Interactive Experiences, Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media. “With Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, we’re bringing together the latest technology and one of the most recognised franchises in the galaxy to fulfil the wishes of anyone who’s ever wanted to wield a lightsaber or take on empire forces on the battlefield.”

Disney from this blog 1 

Disney 2



Friday, September 1, 2017

Quantum Brazil

Thanks Tom

itforum365.com.br


(Google Translation)
The first new feature presented by the brand that comes to revolutionize the sector is the Quantum V. With it, the user can watch videos on real screens, thanks to an image projector in HD, laser, integrated with the hardware of the smartphone, Without the need for additional accessories. The Quantum V user will have a unique projection feature with PicoP® Scanning technology. It allows videos to be projected with high image quality: the contrast and the colors of the projection stick to what is displayed on the screen.
Without the need for projection accessories, the device gets lighter and thinner. Thus, Quantum V facilitates the activity of those who need this type of technology, because the battery is only one; You need only the smartphone, unlike the attached projectors, that need a proper charge of energy. This means energy savings and prevents forgetting accessories from compromising a presentation or a moment of entertainment.
The device comes with features never seen on projectors that are on the market today as a continuous focus, ie, no manual adjustments are required in Quantum V so that the image appears defined in the bulkhead. In this way, consumers can present their contents on an 80-inch screen, at a distance of about 2m between the device and projection. "Our intention is increasingly to break with the traditional. That's why, with Quantum V, we want to offer the user a unique experience of entertainment and usability, never seen on another device, "says Vinícius.
Quantum V is also daring in other functions. With the large 4000mAh battery, the range of the device is guaranteed, with the possibility of projections for up to four continuous hours without the need to recharge. The device was also designed to ensure the storage of images and videos that allow good moments with the use of the projector. So it comes with 64GB of internal memory, plus 4GB of RAM. The Quantum V still features 5.5 "Full HD display, 1.5GHz Octa-Core processor, Android 7.0 Nougat and high resolution cameras, 13MP at the rear and 8MP at the front. These characteristics make the novelty a device that is not restricted to the final consumer seeking new technologies. "Quantum V is a gamble that can span other niche markets such as educational, corporate and government, For the potential that its projector demonstrates, "says Vinícius. The device reaches the market in November of this year, but can already be purchased in the online store of the brand with suggested price from R $ 1,799.